


Tails Of Hunger

by AJFawxe



Series: Tails Of Hunger [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Korean Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 13:41:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15775242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJFawxe/pseuds/AJFawxe
Summary: Follow this story of hunger, desire, and ambition told through the lens of a being known in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean mythology.How does human culture and morality hold up under the scrutiny of a being so alien to us? Can you say who is good and who is evil or merely who claims to be good or evil?





	1. Part 1 ~ Old Hunger ~ Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you will continue to follow my work.
> 
> ☕ [Please keep my cup full!](https://www.ko-fi.com/ajfawxe)

_Ninety-eight. Just two more and I can get that son of a bitch._

The tired soul barely noticed his prayer beads wrapping back around his wrist. The careful flick of his wrist that secured those sacred beads seemed to happen without him thinking. Years of repetition made it happen unbiddenly. 

He sighed as he pushed back his hair, staring down at the unconscious twenty-something laying before him, just outside of a street lights glow. The yokai riding the young man hadn't been happy to see him or those old prayer beads, but nothing he ran into was. 

He looked like a jaded cynic in his early thirties with a bad smoking habit. Most of those labels fit, save for one. The tired man rummaged in his coat and pulled a prayer slip and a pack of cigarettes out. He casually dropped the slip of paper on the man and muttered a prayer. The whole thing was nothing more than a barrier to him popping a cigarette between his lips. 

Everyone is so troubled, nowadays; work is stressful, relationships are complicated, friendships are strained. The world has never been smaller and simpler yet so distant and complex. It made his job easier and more tedious all at once. 

The young man would wake up, confused and lost. Hopefully, they would hold onto the prayer slip, but odds are they would toss it aside or forget about it. There was no point in learning his name. Just another wandering soul that would come and go. 

”All things in this world will pass. Ashes to ashes..” 

”And dust to dust.” The familiar female voice finished the line from a nearby roof. “I hope you're not always this dramatic, it's quite unbecoming of someone such as yourself.” 

”Maybe if you weren't such a loud creature I wouldn't tease you with a little over-acting whenever I hear you sneaking around.” 

”Lies! I know I was silent that time! There's no way you-” 

There was a flicker in the air and for but a moment his eyes were like will-o'-wisps. “Don't tell me you were silent, your very presence is a symphony of noise. Besides,” he rubbed his thumb and forefinger under the end of his cigarette and it caught fire. “The gutter shifted as you came up the other side of that shed.” 

The girl sighed deeply and dropped down from the roof, strolling towards the smoking man. “You know that whole 'I hear your existence’ thing is really creepy. It makes it hard to like you, even if you are pretty cool otherwise.” 

This girl was one of the few beings who ever seemed happy to see him, though she was far more than a girl, or less, by some standards. She was always happy to be around him and see him at work. Always passing along stories and rumors in an attempt to help him. 

It pissed him off, but he wouldn't harm her or shoo her off. 

”I hope you weren't watching me eat. I told you that's not something for you to watch.” He eyed her carefully as he took a long drag from his cigarette. 

”Of course not! And you know I wasn't too. You would have heard my loud existence.” She spoke with a small edge of sarcasm, but all in all, she was honest and sincere. It was rare for a fox, especially her age. Perhaps that's why he let her hang around. 

”I'm guessing you're not here to lose at hide and seek, again. If someone is making trouble let me know. I need two more before I can hunt that piece of trash properly and I'm _particularly hungry_ right now.” 

”I can tell,” the kitsune said plainly, “don't think I didn't consider that when I was headed this way. There's a new den down by the docks. The stuff they moved in was tainted, but what isn't?” There it was, that edge of cynicism when she discussed a lead with him. There was always a mixture of joy and pity when he heard it. 

”I'm guessing they're open for business now, and they have some users sitting around, eh?” The leaf burned, ash falling as the cigarette burned faster. 

”Yup, I'm certain there's a strong one in the supply and a weak one riding the distributor. That's ninety-nine and one hundred.” 

The ghostly fires flickered into his eyes again and his smile was wicked. He threw his head back and swallowed the rest of the cigarette. “I believe I've waited long enough for this. Time to finish this duty and have my reward.” 

”Nic.” The sound of one of his names caught his attention. “When you're done with this one.. you did promise..” The voice was small and careful. The young fox-Mira, that was her name, had moved farther away. 

Nic sighed and nodded in response. “You may visit, yes, but first I need to eat. Make yourself scarce.” 

The girl gave a small smile then dissolved into light that formed into a small two-tailed fox. The little glowing creature darted off into the night. 

_It's almost hunting time. You don't know I'm looking for you, but you'll know me soon enough._


	2. A Train Ride Interlude ~ What New Trouble Approaches?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we meet a woman with a very professional appearance, and a more simple desire, though perhaps her craving is warranted. Our protagonist, Nic, seems to have left some trouble for her to clean up and she's having trouble staying calm about it.
> 
> Please continue to read and we shall see just what kind of trouble she's being dragged into.

_’I need a drink. I need a dammed drink, right now.’_

The world flew past the window of the train car. The countryside, the road and the crossing gates, the lines of cars waiting for the train to pass. It was all a streak, a blur. Shapes and colors that ultimately meant nothing to the woman sitting calmly next to the window. All these miles of countryside broken up by towns and villages were as inconsequential as they were brief to her for all that she worried about. 

She had buried herself in a book. The book could have had any number of words and told any kind of story, but it had merely sat in front of her. The words were little more than shapes that her mind could not quite absorb. There was too much in her mind for these new words to take form and paint the picture that their writer had committed to print. 

”You've been at that book for quite some time, now.” A new voice pierced the clutter in her mind, like a record scratch and then silence. 

As her thoughts slowly fell away she looked up to see who had spoken to her. Pushing a raven colored lock out from in front of her slate grey eyes she found a man, maybe forty years old, looking at her, a smile on his lips. 

_’Please don't make me deal with one of these guys. Gods above I need a drink..’_

To most people she appeared as nothing more than a woman in her thirties wearing a long skirt and a business jacket; very formal, very disciplined. More often than not, she was happy to be received that way. 

”It's a very engaging book. Perhaps you should find one to dive into yourself.” She turned back to her book and tried to push the man out of her mind. 

”That page must have you hooked, because you've been reading it for the past fifteen minutes.” 

_'Damn,’_ she thought to herself, letting out a sigh of defeat. The woman closed the book, not bothering to mark the random page she'd opened it to. Turning to face the middle-aged man she slid her reading glasses off her face. 

”Look, I don't know who you are, and-” 

”Paul,” the man interrupted, holding out a hand. “Paul Hanover's the name.” 

The women looked down at his hand then back to his face. “I wasn't planning on asking. I don't know you, but apparently you've been watching me long enough to know I'm staring at the same page.” 

”I look at every interesting lady I come across.” 

”For at least fifteen minutes?” 

The man let his hand fall back to his side. He knew he'd been caught by his own words. “You don't make it easy for a guy to make a move.” 

”You don't make it easy for a lady to get some peace and quiet.” 

The man scoffed and turned away, muttering a string of derisive remarks before letting out a yelp. He touched a finger to his tongue and it came back wet with just a touch of blood. 

”That tongue of yours is causing a lot of trouble.” The raven-haired business woman opened her book to a different spot and glared at the nosy man. “Perhaps you should keep a lock on it.” 

The man left without another word, if only because he couldn't say anything without agitating the cut she'd given him. 

_’That dammed fox better have a bottle of Harvest Moon. I'm needing some of his better stuff.’_ Which year was it? Around this time of the decade he'd be back to one of his favorite names, Nicodemus. 

The memories of meetings and greetings came back. _”Nicholas is the name, but call me Nick. Ya, I am Nikolai, most call me Nik. My name is Niklaus. You may call me Klaus, or Nik if you're that simple.”_

Nicodemus was the name he introduced himself with when they met in the very town she was currently racing towards. 

_”What kind of name is Nicodemus?”_ She remembered asking. She knew it was an adopted name, but it was odd. Exotic even by supernatural standards. 

_”It's a Nick-name,”_ he had said smoothly, a ghost of a smile creasing his lips. In time she would learn to recognize that silent expression as the look he got when he was incredibly pleased with himself. 

She had rolled her eyes at how terrible the joke was, but she knew she had showed the barest hint of a smile when he said it. It would take many years for her to discover the full implications of the joke. 

The woman pulled an old pocket watch from her inside jacket pocket as the train lurched through a curve. Eyeing the ageless time piece she ran her thumb over the glass and the face shifted a few times. 

The time displayed like a digital watch. It then shifted to the traditional date with the lunar date below it. The minute hand moved as the face shifted to display the seasons. The enchanted hand stopped and immediately moved again as the lunar cycles appeared. Finally, an image formed of a cloudy sky over a blurred city. A few moments passed and the clouds let loose a blanket of water upon the skyline. 

She closed the pocket watch and slipped it back inside her jacket pocket. Her eyes moved to the window as it passed the sign designating they had crossed into the city limits. 

_’You've left me quite a mess now. You better make this easy to fix, Nick.’_

It was only as she could feel how close she was to the city that she felt the seed of worry begin to sprout. She pushed it down as she drummed her fingers on the book that had fallen from her hands at some point. 

_’It's okay. Soon I'll have that drink. The best drink I could ask for. If not I'll take it out of that fox's ass._


End file.
